JUPITER, Fla. -- Many Cardinals players have opted to return to their offseason homes as Major League Baseball announced Friday that Spring Training camps will be suspended, effectively immediately.

According to the release, Major League players can elect to return home, remain in their Spring Training cities, or return to their club’s home city.

Cardinals camp is formally closed, but president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said around 10-15 players -- many of whom have homes in Jupiter -- are staying. A “skeleton” staff will be at the facility as well, and the players who stay are free to work out at the complex independently.

Korean left-hander Kwang-Hyun Kim was advised not to return to his home in South Korea, and after conversations with the team, he elected to stay in Jupiter.

Minor League players -- who were told to remain at the hotel Friday and await further instructions -- were instructed to return to their homes. Many of them went to the complex Friday afternoon to retrieve their gear before leaving.

The decision to give the players the option to go home comes after MLB met with the MLB Players Association in Arizona on Friday. The Cardinals held a team meeting Friday morning to figure out the next steps after Major League Baseball decided to cancel Spring Training games and delay the start of the 2020 regular season. The Cardinals’ message on Friday was to remain flexible -- and the team emphasized that the situation was rapidly evolving with plans changing “hour-by-hour,” as Mozeliak described.

The Cardinals opened their training room and weight room to players who wanted to use either Friday morning, but the team cancelled all baseball activities as they awaited the instruction from Major League Baseball that came later in the afternoon.

“The most fair answer, the most current answer, is we just don’t know,” Mozeliak said Friday morning about what those next steps are. “This is a very fluid situation. What we know now versus what we knew 24 hours ago has changed quite a bit. What we’re going to know later today or tonight or tomorrow is going to be different than what I know now.

“And so, the best response is that we have to remain nimble, flexible and then make sure that the health of our players, their families and our staff is on the forefront of what we’re thinking about.”

Manager Mike Shildt is meeting with his staff to lay out a plan for the multiple scenarios that could happen with the delayed season, to make sure they will be ready for anything. While pitchers' throwing schedules are unknown right now, Shildt said he’s encouraging pitchers to continue to play catch and stay in shape until they get more clarity on timeframes.

The biggest challenge in creating those plans is the unknown, with no sense yet of when Opening Day will be.

“It’s hard to plan with the unknown, but at least create a structure that we can work off of and then narrow the structures down as things start to become more clear as we go,” Shildt said. “One of the things we discussed is making sure we’re doing this together and we’re communicating. And we’re going to be -- we have to be -- fluid. That’s going to be crucial.”

Another question the Cardinals front office and coaching staff have to try to answer is how to monitor players’ workloads from their homes. Mozeliak said that there will be meetings Saturday and Sunday to determine what the next steps look like now that players are heading home.

“You look at where we stopped,” Mozeliak said. “Where the athlete was when the game ended yesterday. Now the question is, when are we going to restart? Until we really know that answer, it’s hard to direct an exact plan, so it is most likely going to fall under the umbrella of maintaining. But there could be a point where you’re going to need to ramp back up. We’re working with our performance department to be thinking a lot about that and understanding the different scenarios that may happen during this quiet period.”

If there is another camp before the season opens, Mozeliak said the Cardinals will come up with a plan for when players do return from their offseason homes, and the team will work with MLB on monitoring the coronavirus outbreak.

“We will have to have protocols for re-entry into Camp 2,” Mozeliak said. “So that’s something that individuals have to be aware of.”

Here are some other things that were discussed Friday:

• Shildt said the tone of the clubhouse meeting Friday was “professional,” as players process what the Opening Day delay means. Many questions were asked, even if the team didn’t have all the answers at that point.

• Players’ contact with Cardinals coaches and trainers is not prohibited, Mozeliak said, so players are free to have an open dialogue about their training and workload during this period.

• Director of player development Gary LaRocque and his Minor League staff did a “yeoman’s job” of getting travel reservations ready for Minor League players -- around 175 of them -- in a matter of hours, Mozeliak said.

• Mozeliak said he hadn’t heard what will happen with the London Series, scheduled for June 13-14 against the Cubs. Once he learns more about scheduling -- and when Opening Day will be -- he will have more information on when or if that series will take place.